Winter Wolf

The buildings along the street were the same silvery shades as the low banks of clouds above. Their faces revealed dark windows and funereal emptiness. The muddy, snow-slushy street glowed faintly. The world here was in black and white. Though the storm had passed, the town was unnaturally subdued. There should have been bluster and people shoveling and sweeping.

‘Not right for December, with Christmas just two days away.’

Faint fiddle music grew louder as she came to the end of the street and turned the corner onto the main street where the buildings were taller but just as bleak. At last, she spied a spot of color in the sad grey landscape…red. The tavern was The Crafty Hand, the sign overhanging the arched doorway depicted a severed hand, red was the blood, vibrant against the faded boards of its walls; once painted black, now looking charred. The only light emanated from the large windows to each side of the door. The music was not lively, not pretty, not inspiring. It was as bleak and sorrowful as a funeral dirge.

‘Someone must have died. Someone important, for it seems the entire town is mourning,’ she thought. Winter paused outside the Hand’s door, and pulled the fur lined hood of her white deerskin cloak around her face to conceal her eyes. ‘Times as these are dangerous for one of my kind,’ she thought as she hesitantly raised her hand to the iron handle on the sturdy oak door.

A scream and sudden cacophony of excited cries arose from around the corner. Behind the tavern was an alley, it was a block long, and as wide as the main street; it was the town’s Center Square, and at the far end, naturally, stood the gibbet.

The ruckus turned out to be a gaggle of children gathered at the base of the gibbet. As Winter neared the riotous group, she noted there were nine, ranging in size from toddler-small to preteen lanky. It was impossible to tell their gender---they were wrapped in grubby layers of dull colored, ragged clothing- covered head to toe against the chill of December.

From the gibbet’s 45 degree post a cage hung from it ten feet above the ground. The bars were black iron. The hasp was secured by a fat dradle-shaped lock.

The excited children were throwing rocks at the slumped pile of rags in the center of the cage. The rocks mostly clanged off the metal bars, producing a discordant song more upbeat than the gloomy requiem from the tavern. Every now and then a rock found its target and the small shapeless figure shifted and groaned.

She said, “Stop that this instant.” And though she had barely raised her voice above the frenzied din, the children responded as if she’d bellowed at the top of her lungs. The figure in the cage peeked out from between his small hands. ‘Not a child then. A dwarf,’ she thought as she noted a scruffy red-blond beard streaked with silver.

The largest boy hefted a rock in his right hand and sneered. “Who be you tellun us what to do?”

A girl of about the same age said, “Yeah. We’re havin’ fun and he’s gon die anyways.”

The largest boy raised his rock-fisted hand towards the cage. The figure in it ducked back into his rags like a turtle from a soup monger with a spear. Winter caught his wrist and squeezed.

“Aaaiiii!” the boy shrieked and held his wrist to his chest.

Some of the smaller children laughed. He whirled around and knocked a little kid down. “Go eat yella snow,” he hissed. The laughter resumed and a child missing his (or her) front teeth kicked the boy on the ground.

Winter said, “Stop that. What’s gotten into you all? You’re behaving like rabid, brainless monkeys.”

A couple kids giggled as Winter bent and picked up the fallen boy. She said, “Goodness. You’re cold as an igloo.”

A small girl with ringlets of pale-yellow hair escaping from her grey woolen cap said, “What’s an ig-loo?”

Another said, “S’like an outhouse.”

The big boy said, “Shut up Murphy. You too Poppy.” To Winter, he said, “My Da’ll put you in the cage for what you did to me.”

“I think not.” Winter bent slightly and peered into his face. She lowered her hood, and the boy exhaled a thick stream of white, rotten-cabbage-scented breath that puffed into her face and around her head. Her long silken white hair blew from her face in a sudden gust of wintery wind. The children gasped as one. Her eyes were huge and yellow and glowed like a cat’s does in the dark. She licked her red lips and grinned, revealing too many long, pointed teeth in a too-wide mouth. She blinked and the spell was broken. Emmy stumbled away from her and took off running across the square, slipping twice on the icy cobblestones. A second later, the other children took off in all directions.

Winter looked up as she lifted her hood back over her head, tucking in her snow-white hair. The figure in the cage was standing. A regular man would be bent over nearly in half…but this man’s head was a foot from the top of the cage. Winter knew right away that this man’s only crime was dwarfism. She said, “Let me guess…they blame you for the death of…of someone important here…”

“The pastor. Yes.” His voice was faint and raspy.

“And they’ve cancelled Christmas because of it too.”

“Yes. The worst part.” He coughed.

“Here. Here, you must be parched.” Winter retrieved a flask from an inner pocket and passed it up through the bars.

“I’m Pepito by the way,” said the dwarf as he reached down for the flask.

“Winter.”

Pepito froze. “I thought you looked familiar.” He sipped from the silver flask, closed his eyes, and said, “Aaahhhhhh. Peppermint schnapps. My favorite.”

“Keep it. I’ll be back at midnight.”

“Yes. I know,” said Pepito solemnly, as lacy white snowflakes fell, accumulating on his dark woolen coat and hat.

A minute after midnight a pure white wolf crept along the edge of the square, she was as graceful and silent as a ghost. Her dainty paws glided over the fresh carpet of snow. If she stood still, she would be as perfectly camouflaged as a drop of water in the sea. At the gibbet she crouched low then sprung into the air. She landed on the post parallel to the ground; she landed on all fours and padded carefully along the arm then to the roof of the cage. From there she slunk along the bars, effortlessly hanging on, her slim appendages fitting easily between the bars.

Pepito muttered under his breath, “Magnificent,” as the she-wolf flexed her paw over the lock. With a two-inch claw she picked the lock easily. She cringed, her fur raised in hackles and her ears flattened to her skull, when the opening door let out a screeching wail of protest.

Pepito climbed onto Winter’s back. She leapt from the cage to the ground and galloped like a streak of lightning out of the square. She’d promised the little man to see him safely to his village many miles north of this one.

Emmy stepped out from behind the booze wagon by the tavern’s back door. He followed, a shotgun in his hand.

They were fast and it was dark. He nearly lost them. It stopped snowing and Emmy located what could only be wolf prints in the fresh layer. From the barn at the farm farthest from the town, Winter emerged as a woman, her long pale cloak gave her away against the blackness of the interior. The dwarf was beside her. Emmy followed.

They walked ten miles; the dwarf was non-complaining though Winter was concerned about the little guy’s legs cramping. “I can’t speak as a wolf. But we must hurry.” Without waiting for a response, a whirlwind of snow raised up around her like a curtain, when it fell it took her clothes with it to the ground. Pepito rolled her clothes into her cloak and hopped onto her back.

The next ten miles flew by swiftly. Winter no longer smelled Emmy behind them as they crested a steep mountainous hill. The sun was approaching the horizon as a peach-colored streak that painted the entire wintery scene the same rosy shades, the snow twinkling euphorically. Far in the distance thin streams of smoke curly-cued into the indigo sky. Pepito clapped and leapt down onto the slope. The entire face of the snowy hill shifted, and the dwarf was carried away with it. Winter leapt after him, tucking into a fur ball. As she flew past him and heard him laughing. By the time she’d rolled to the bottom she’d become a woman once more and quickly donned her scattered clothing. Pepito was still giggling when she stood over him. As he stood up, his charcoal-grey coat had come apart, revealing a shockingly bright red lining…and a flash of gold. Winter studied the dwarf’s face with brows furrowed over eyes turning from natural deep amber to fantastical glowing yellow.

As she opened her mouth, “Pepito my friend---” she caught a scent on breeze from the south, from behind them. “We need to go. That wicked boy is catching up.”

“He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed but he is very young. You’re not afraid of him?”

“Of course not. I’m afraid for him.”

They headed for the woods just ahead. The blustery wind from the south notified Winter of his location. However…the danger ahead was lying in wait undetected.

On the other side of the forest, they came to a meadow. Though the sky was a tumult of purple clouds, the fresh white blanket glowed and sparkled in the growing darkness of dusk. Pepito began down the slope.

He said, “I know this place.” He stopped and pointed to the tree line to the east. “That’s where I was captured. Accused of cursing the pastor, who’d brainwashed his flock into believing sacrificially killing me would rid the town of its blight. I was gathering plants for my garden at home---verbena, dill, fennel, fungi. The sun was shining. Birds were singing…chipmunks and squirrels chattered in the trees. Hawks called to each other---”

“Shhh.”

“Wha---?”

“That’s what’s wrong now. There is no noise. No birds, no critters…”

Winter grabbed Pepito’s arm and pulled him with her back into the woods. She searched for a place to hide. A sharp crack cut the air behind them---a branch snapping like the shot from a small handgun. She smelled the boy…but now she smelled two, as if Emmy had been split into two like a bolt of wood split by an axe.

Suddenly she found the two of them flung into the air over their heads, wrapped tightly into a bundle wound with thick ropes. They were still swinging gently when Emmy came into the clearing, his breath heavily puffing, his thin face red and grinning broadly. The second emerged from behind them. The man looked like the boys twin, but older and scruffy and reeking of body odor and bourbon. His father.

“Well done son!”

“Told you Pa! She did it…she set him free.”

“Ai. And she’ll hang for it. C’mon. Let’s set up camp. We’ll head home at first light.”

“Turning into a wolf would only reveal what I am. I’d be shot before I could chew us free.”

Pepito nodded thoughtfully with a frown on his rosy cheeked face. The man looked up at them. Winter put a finger to her lips.

When the man and boy were curled in their blankets under a two-sided lean-to and snoring, Winter whispered, “About your coat…”

Pepito sighed. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you. Revealing our true nature is forbidden in the ‘outside world.’”

“I can certainly relate to that.” Then she nodded for him to go on.

The wee man held up a finger then got up on his knees. The ropes creaked softly and their four eyes darted to the lean-to. The snores were louder than the declarations of the rope prison. Pepito struggled out from his coat and then his waistcoat of the same coarse wool. He turned the vest inside out to reveal shining gilded brocade, the pattern of intricate pine boughs and birds, the threads so finely brilliant they looked as if spun from pure gold. Winter’s eyes were wide with wonder. Ironically resembling her new friend’s expression upon witnessing her own reveal.

Pepito put his vest on, smoothing the lapels with pride, he appeared much taller in stature. Dawning intuition swirled through Winter’s mind as the dwarf took his coat and turned it inside out as well, revealing a brilliant scarlet fabric so finely woven a king would trade a princess or two for a bolt of the stuff.

Lastly, Pepito turned his drab floppy hat inside out to reveal a pine green satin cap with ebony sheep fur that circled his forehead and covered his…pointed ears. Winter laughed with delight but quickly clapped a hand over her mouth, glancing downwards again.

She whispered, “You’re no dwarf. You’re an elf.”

Pepito nodded proudly. “Now. If you can talk to nature as all wolves do, can you summon the owls?”

“I can.”

Winter lifted her head, revealing a long slender neck. As she called out to the birds of the night, her throat undulated as if she were drinking large mouthfuls of water. From her parted lips came: “Whoo whoo whoo-whooooo.” A perfect owl’s voice. She repeated the call two more times before a soft fluttering hushed through the pine boughs above them.

Six owls sat in branches encircling the hanging rope cage. Their large round eyes were miniature moons in the shadows.

“They are wary of me,” whispered Winter.

Pepito nodded and stood carefully, stubby legs wobbling in the cage, and turned so all the birds could see him. The owls all shuffled their wintery white feathers, relaxed, and inched closer along the boughs.

Winter spoke softly to them in their language, translating what the elf was telling them. After a few minutes they flew off, heading north.

In the pale icy blue dimness of dawn, the man cut the rope tied around the tree and the bundle of woman and elf fell to the ground, the whump deadened minutely by a foot of soft snow. Pepito was back looking like a forlorn scraggy dwarf, while Winter fought to conceal the sharp fangs that grew when she was angry.

They were dragged like refuse to a cart hidden beneath loose snow-covered boughs just feet from where Winter and Pepito had passed the day before then flung into it landing in a tumble of limbs.

Four hours later, they wheeled into the grey town. Though it wasn’t so quiet as before. In fact, the village was bustling with activity and the sound of axes thunking wood, horses and asses whinnying under heavy harness, and gunfire ringing out tither and yon.

They were brought back to the gibbet in the square, surrounded by the townsfolk too young or too old to be preparing for the feast. For the sacrifice. The bloodshed. Streamers of black shrouds hung from the grey buildings along the street, wafting like witches’ cloaks. Hawkers calls streaked the air, selling meat pies, treats, and popped corn topped with butter, molasses, cinnamon or pig fat. Some sold memorabilia like wooden figures of a cloaked woman and little man or cheap daggers depicting the date of this event.

Though the scene was lively…it was dark. Dark as a funeral precession, lively as one for a cardinal…or a pope.

In the cage, now on the ground, larger but far more sturdy, Winter said, “This is all wrong. This is Christmas Eve. It should be lighted and colorful and joyous.”

Pepito said, “Yes. And they do not realize that killing one of Santa’s elves will doom the entire town.”

Winter said, “There are very few of my kind left but they will feast on the bones in the aftermath.”

They both sighed miserably.

Night fell and the bonfire was lit. The flames steadily crept up the pyre. For awhile, both captives reveled in the warmth. But as the flames intensified, Winter was losing the battle to keep her secret…her teeth grew long, her ears as well. Her eyes turned yellow and started glowing.

People noticed and reacted triumphantly, roaring with approval.

As the crowd stood mesmerized by Winter’s transformation, a flash of red streaked the sky.

Pepito stood straight in his rope bonds. He shrieked, “Pappa!”

Winter stopped fighting the change. She was again a wolf.

Saint Nickolas came down in a sleigh drawn by four reindeer with an entourage of six snowy owls. Snow sprayed over the crowd that was now stunned into silence and awe.

When he spoke, it was like the voice of God, reverberating and magnificent and deep. “Come my child. And Winter Wolf. Come.” As he raised his arms, the lock on the cage fell away with a spark and a clatter.

People began backing away.

The new pastor dropped his staff and ran into the crowd, a trail of black smoke swirled in his wake.

Winter and Pepito, now in his elf attire sat in the sleigh. As the reindeer lifted into the night sky and circled the village, the black shrouds turned to gold, the dark windows alighted with candlelight, sparks fell from the wake of the sleigh, turning to red shiny balls that landed upon the boughs of holly now decorating every window and doorway.

Winter stayed with the elves and Santa Claus that winter but moved on, determined to save more innocents like Pepito. Perhaps she’d meet another as magical as an elf…perhaps not. Only time will tell…and Christmas.